Page 233 of Fury

Dog surveyed the detritus. “Holy fuck, what the hell happened?”

“Notch happened. And I got here first and cleaned this shit up. Thought you’d want to claim your bro.”

Dog glared at me.

“Notch hasn’t been himself for a long while,” said Pick, arms crossed, his face a mask.

Dog’s eyes darted to Pick and back to Scrib and Notch’s bloodied bodies.

“Look what he did to your bro.” I gestured with my chin to Scrib’s mutilated body.

“Holy fuck,” Dog muttered.

“Scrib came to finalize shit between our clubs, but Notch wasn’t too pleased by the money Scrib offered,” Pick said. “He’s been changing his mind a lot, was jittery with Reich out of the picture. Been mixing meds lately too. They argued. There was a lot of yelling and carrying on. The door was locked. I broke it down and found Scrib already dead. Notch was carving him up, laughing.”

“You expect me to believe this?” Dog muttered, his brow a firm ridge, his small eyes piercing mine.

“I only expect you to take your corpse and get the fuck out,” I said.

Dog wiped a hand across his mouth. “I wasn’t around then, Finger, when Scrib done what he did to you. Those were bad times, that was another—”

“Yeah, it was another life, Dog. And we don’t need to go there ever again.”

Dog’s shoulders shifted slowly, straining under a heavy, invisible weight.

“Now you need to get your garbage off my property and never come back,” I said.

“Your property?” Dog’s gaze went from me to Pick and back again.

“This chapter of the Blades is now Flames of Hell,” Pick said.

Dog’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I came in. I cleaned up,” I said, my voice firm. Dog turned away from me, his jaw tight.

“This shit had to end. Couldn’t go on much longer,” said Pick. “Notch was playing games with Scrib, with Finger, the Jacks, with everybody. Only destroyed his own club in the end.”

“Clear Scrib out and we’re done here,” I said.

Dog let out a breath, scrubbing a hand across his grizzly face. He knew what I meant. He needed to retreat and stay away. We were done, and we could all go back to abiding that treaty.

Dog muttered a directive at his men, and they removed Scrib’s body from the room. Pick remained, standing over Notch’s corpse.

“You get me the other Blade chapters on board,” I told him.

“You’ll have ‘em.” He grabbed hold of Notch’s thin legs and dragged the body down the hall.

I stayed and took in the fading odor of blood and battle, soaked in the sting and echo of mayhem that lingered.

But another raging fire before me still blazed.

Still beckoned.

65

Istood in the aisle withthe seed packets. Chives, onions, eggplants, bell peppers, tomatoes, parsley, dill.

The girl, the young woman who was my biological daughter, arranged red glazed dishes on a shelf next to mugs. The top half of her dark hair was pulled up in a small ponytail. She wore her earbuds, listening to music as she worked, picking up small dishes from a crate at her side. She sang to herself, her thoughts coming to life on her face.

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